Failure Reasons of Connector Terminals of Automotive Controller

The failure reasons of the connector terminals of an actual applied automotive controller were analyzed through temperature cycle endurance tests on the connector, monitoring the increase of contact resistance of the connector terminals during the whole test process by applied voltage, the thermal imaging of circuit, examination with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The results showed that the failure of the connector terminals was caused by a combination of fretting corrosion due to imbalanced emitting heat of circuit and alternating of environmental temperature, material oxidation, metal diffusion and metal creep.